Page 1 of Sons of Sorrow
1
Warm water cradled my body,soaked my skin. I pressed my lips tightly together, eyes open as I stared up at the surface. I could do this. I could breathe water if I allowed myself to believe it, if only I tried. I exhaled, bubbles rising. I steadied my mind as I watched my very breath escape my body, escape the water.
I inhaled.
Bad idea. I sat bolt upright, water stinging my nostrils, that awful sensation of not quite drowning, of having the sinuses painfully rinsed from the inside. Sylvain knelt by the bathtub, my attentive, adoring prince of flowers. One of his strong hands clapped my shoulder, rubbing circles on my back.
“Don’t say it,” I said, coughing and sputtering.
He shook his head as he handed me a small towel, emerald green and embroidered with gold, the colors of the Wispwood academy. “I didn’t say anything.”
“Okay. Good.” I toweled my face off, my knees pulling up to my chest as I continued to sit sheepishly in the tub.
Sylvain breathed. “I just think it’s funny.”
“Oh, gods.” I twirled a corner of the towel in one ear, then the other. “Sylvain, come on.”
He crossed his arms, still kneeling. “I just think it’s funny that we’re supposed to be in a hurry, and instead of the two of us having a lovely, flowery bath together, you’ve elected to once again attempt to drown yourself in a glorified wash basin.”
I chuckled, half exasperated, half amused, draping the tiny towel over my head. It could be very cute when Sylvain got all mopey like this. “It was an experiment, I told you. And we have an appointment to keep, remember? We can have an extremely lovely bath together later. We can get filthy and wash up again. As many times as you like.”
Sylvain cocked his eyebrow. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, oh summoner.”
“Well, I’ll do my best. I’m just still so confused. How come I could breathe underwater back in the oriel, even without the spell from my medallion?”
The expression on Sylvain’s face said he had zero idea, his shoulders and arms bulging as he shrugged. My lovely prince, shirtless at my side in case I splashed around too much, but also wearing comfy lounging shorts, because we were actually making some progress in the clothing department.
I had to admit. This wasn’t the first time I’d submerged myself in water to check on what the hell had happened back in the Oriel of Water. I could breathe seawater like it was air, a luxury that was supposed to be bestowed upon me by one of the magical gems embedded in my medallion.
There was no way I could have hallucinated it, either. That damn necklace had fallen from my neck somehow, and yet water-breathing still felt effortless. No difference at all between when I’d lost it and when Satchel had heroically retrieved it for me.
Where was my familiar, anyway? Probably getting familiar with more of the imps around the castle, trying to sell his handmade fashions.
“I told you my theory,” Sylvain said, offering me his hand to help me out of the tub. “That some vestiges of the water-breathing spell clung to you, even after the medallion fell. Long enough to sustain you for a few lungfuls of breath, at least.”
“Well, sure,” I said, drying my feet on the bath mat. “But isn’t it more interesting to consider the possibility that I’m, I don’t know, part merman?”
Sylvain rolled his eyes and grunted. I smirked.
“Look at you, still all jealous over those very hot mermen we met in the Oriel of Water.”
“Pah. Preposterous. I will, however, confess that I am jealous that you got to bathe.” He ran a finger along the surface of the bath water. “It looks so warm and inviting.”
I clapped him on the chest, both in reassurance and to quickly feel up that taut muscle. “I just rinsed myself, basically. Well, inside as well as outside. I’m mainly wet, not really clean. Besides, you bathed this morning. How filthy did you possibly get?”
“Oh, sure, pretend like you don’t already know.” Sylvain pulled me close, the words rumbling in his chest. “I can get extremely filthy, little human.”
“Stop that.” I shoved him in the chest, laughing. “We should hurry. I know Mister Brittle likes us a little better now, but I still don’t want to risk pissing off the head librarian. We both need books, and we both need him to tell us what he’s learned about that parchment.”
That put a little more pep in his step. Sylvain threw his clothes on as convincingly as a man who didn’t fundamentally hate the idea of them in the first place.
Satchel had discovered that strange piece of parchment under the Queen of Autumn’s throne, the very thing that infected her with the Withering and transformed her into a bladed monster. We’d approached Mr. Brittle for his expertise on the matter.
Just this morning — shortly after Sylvain’s bath, in fact — one of the library imps had popped in to let us know that Brittle wanted to see us. But only at two in the afternoon, and exactly at two. I had to calm Sylvain down over breakfast, but he could only contain himself for so long. If there was anything Sylvain loved more than himself, it was his mother.
And maybe me. Hopefully me. I liked to think so, at least. Fully dressed — in gray sweatpants and a matching gray sleeveless hoodie, that is — he pressed a soft kiss against my cheek.
“I’m ready, little human. Shall we find out who did this to my mother? And then we can go and kill them.”
